​There’s something to be said for choices…and for this week’s Romance Writer’s Weekly blog hop there certainly were choices to make. The first choice was to decide which of the “would you rather” options that were offered…and it wasn’t an easy one! I bounced between red headed hotties and blonde hunks or scuba diving or sky diving…and finally decided that since my choice of men didn’t include either of the selections, it would have to be the latter.Now, I have to preface my entry with the fact that I am absolutely PETRIFIED of being in water over my head. Not sure where that fear came from, but it’s been an anchor around my ankle for as long as I can remember. I can’t think of anytime my mother left me in the bathtub as a baby and I almost drowned or getting stuck in water unable to swim as a child. So, the fear is absolutely ridiculous. But it exists. In fact, I am so scared of drowning that even though I learned to swim and love to swim, I cannot swim in water that is over my head. I sink like a freaking rock!On the other hand, I used to be scared to fly in an airplane until a job that I had forced me on a little prop plane from Indianapolis to Chicago because it was the most economical mode of transportation. So, I climbed on that damned plane and promptly turned green (according to the woman in the seat next to me) as soon as I felt the land drop out from under the wheels of the plane. I mean, really, how in the world does an enormous contraption of steel manage to stay in the air? Alas, I have learned to love to fly and it has become exhilarating to me to get on a plane and look out the window and see the clouds below us! I even climbed in my younger brother’s small plane, in the front seat, and watched as the little Volkswagen with wings lifted up off the tarmac without my stomach turning inside out. Someday, I may even try to take lessons myself, that’s how much I love flying.Skydiving and scuba diving are the extremes of both. I have to admit, I was tempted to jump in the skydiving simulator during a trip to Vegas but when I weighed out the cost value of seeing a two hour entertainment show as opposed to a few minutes of faked glory, the show won out. And when I’ve seen some of the awesome photos that people have taken of sunken treasure when scuba diving, I have to say that there is a certain romantic appeal of diving with a hunky instructor down to the depths of the ocean floor.I know, I can’t decide to do both and honestly, I don’t know that I could do either when it came down to it. So, I guess it’s a matter of which way I would rather take a chance that I might die. Do I want to smother to death under the water or risk being eaten by sharks? Or do I want to take the chance that my parachute might fail and my head would literally go up my ass as I hit the ground at five hundred miles an hour? I know, that’s an exaggeration, but isn’t that what writers do? Exaggerate the reality to make it interesting?For my bucket list, I’ve always wanted to rid myself of my fear of water over my head. But I can also imagine the freedom of flying through the air like a mighty eagle. Of course, in my case, it probably wouldn’t be the graceful flying of an eagle it would be more like the flopping of a vulture. Or the failed attempts of a chicken with clipped wings trying to fly across the top of the pasture fence. I don’t do graceful. I do clumsy.With all that said, to be able to go beneath the water and feel the flow of tropical seas on my body has got to be the most sensuous feeling. To scavenge along the bottom of the ocean and finding a fabulous piece of pirate’s gold or a queen’s trunk of rubies, emeralds and sapphires would have to be the most awesome and profitable adventure. Even though it would be very difficult for me to divest myself of such treasures if I found them. Oh, to see the remains of a ship carrying newcomers to the New World and wonder what their last thoughts were as their ship plunged to the depths of the ocean. All their dreams of a new life shattered like the wooden boards of their ship. What would they have been when they arrived here? A plantation owner in Louisiana or a proper Southern lady entertaining guests in her parlor or sipping mint juleps on her veranda? And of course, there is always the question of how the ship met its unfortunate fate. Did a hurricane come up and throw the ship around the ocean with the wind howling and the thunder cracking until the broken ship finally took on water and sunk in the calmness of the eye of the storm? Or were they attacked by marauding pirates who actually sunk the ship and took the women for themselves turning them into wanton sexual objects with their petticoats ripped and their bodices exposing cleavage for the men to fondle at their desire?Ah, yes, it would have to be scuba diving for this romance author. Scuba diving to weave the ideas for new stories to tell. Pirates turning Victorian women into prostitutes perhaps to be rescued by a brave soldier when they reached the streets of New Orleans and living happily ever after. And the very thought of a sexy scuba instructor leading the way under the depths of the blue green water of a tropical ocean, pointing out brightly colored fish and sunken treasures could lead to yet another romance story. Definitely, scuba diving could provoke the creative mind of a romance author and fill it full of erotic and sensual love scenes of both historical and modern day genres.For more stories about what romance authors would choose for themselves please start with the blog of Leslie Hachtel at http://lesliehachtelwriter.wordpress.com. Until next time…